Rose Tyler: The Girl Who Never Was
by BadWolfIsMe
Summary: Rose Tyler is just a girl. she works for Torchwood. she's the bravest person anyone knows.. and sometimes she just sits and seems to forget where she is. lost in another time, another world.. who is she? does she even know herself anymore? oneshot, sad


**oneshot!  
i wrote this AGES ago, but just didn't get round to posting it lol!**

**set after Doomsday, some time not long before Turn Left, just before Rose developed the Dimention Cannon, but that's made clear at the end if i remember what i wrote correctly! lol!**

**what do you think of the name?? i'm not too sure and if anyone could come up with anything better that would be great!!**

**please review! reviews are love and i love everyone who does!! :)  
do a swap... a cookie for a review?? go on, you know you want a cookie!! ;)**

* * *

"Please, have mercy!" the eldest screamed, clutching the younger's to her chest – or what could be identified as a chest, anyhow.

"I gave you the choice. You chose this," in one fluid movement, Rose turned to the switch she had been threatening the family with only seconds before, and flicked it upright. Instantly, the room began to fill with smoke, Gantils and Humans all screaming as the lights went out and they were plunged into total darkness. Only two people stood completely still in the mist of all the mayhem, and that was the oldest and, some said, the wisest of the family. Rose and he stood at opposite ends of the room, keeping eye contact throughout the bustle of bodies pushing against them, each clawing for a way out. His eyes weren't angry, they weren't upset, they just seemed to accept the fate put upon them by this young girl who stood without a name. He knew she was right to do what she did, for the sake of her race, just like he didn't blame himself or his family for the Human lives they took for their own.

A child began to cry by Rose's feet, and she broke contact with the Gantil to reach down and pick it up from the floor to avoid it being trampled on by the hundreds of feet rushing about in the darkness.

A whirring sounded from somewhere to Rose's right, and a door was flung open, revealing a young man. He looked about the room in some sort of confusion, before coughing slightly, and moving to the side. As if being woken from a dream, Rose instinctively took control of the situation again, he loud, clear voice echoing in the confusion.

"Run!" just one word, and the entire room was alert to the open door. The man stood aside to allow hoards of people unfortunate enough to have witnessed the events just passed to run through the gap to freedom and clean air. Rose passed the child to a woman, who took it without a seconds thought, but Rose didn't move.

It didn't take long for the room to clear, leaving just Rose and the family in the room. Looking up, Rose noticed the man hadn't moved from the door, and was observing her carefully.

"Come on!" he shouted, Rose took one look at the dying Gantils before walking, not running, towards the door, "Come on!" he yelled again, but Rose didn't rush. She stopped half way, to relieve her lungs of the smoke that was slowly taking up residence, but once recovered from her coughing fit, she still only walked.

Once she reached the door, the man stood aside to let her pass, but she paused, and looked back. Two words past her lips, but he would never have guessed them to be, "I'm sorry."

.o0o0o

Rose walked out of the building, a swift stride taking her away. She wasn't one to stick around once the job had been done. People milled about her, but no-one noticed her leave. No-one could know she was important. Only the hundred-odd people who had been trapped in that room with her and the family would ever know what really happened, and Rose knew for a fact that they wouldn't be telling anyone anytime soon.

So intent was Rose on leaving that building, that she didn't notice a young man with brown, floppy hair follow her. It wasn't until they were a while out of sight of the building that she turned to face an empty street.

"Alright, I know you're there, come out now," the man slowly moved from where he had been hiding, completely out of sight, to face the woman he had been following.

Rose watched him with a tight, unimpressed expression on her face, something that caused many people to squirm under her intense gaze. _But not him_, Rose noticed. No. In fact, he stood still, a slightly amused smile playing at the corners of his lips. Rose frowned.

"Can I help you?" she asked, "It's just, normally people only follow me if they have a reason."

The man grinned, and Rose recognised him as the man who had held open the door for the trapped Humans to escape through, "I don't know," he gave as an honest answer.

Rose's frown increased as she watched this man through squinted lids. The man who turned up as everyone else wanted to leave. The man who waited for others to be safe, rather than turning and running when he saw the horrors within. The man who could open a door locked from the inside with a single, whirring noise, "Who are you?" she asked.

"Who are _you_?" he replied. _I asked you first_, came an instant reply in Rose's head, but she bit it down. _He wants to play_, she thought, _we'll see how long he lasts in this game!_

"My name is Rose," she replied, simply, and then turned to walk away, but was stopped by his next words.

"The Bad Wolf. The woman who can defeat an entire family from another planet before I've even arrived, with no obvious remorse for the lives lost…"

"They chose their fate!" Rose spat, "I gave them the chance to walk away but they wouldn't! I would have spared their life had they been willing to spare ours!" the man stepped back, he hadn't been aware of the effect his words would have on this somehow broken girl, "I do not take pleasure in removing _anyone_ from their lives, and they had their chance."

He had to say he was impressed with that, "You say anyone like you come across beings like those every day," Rose just shrugged, "You have such calm, and yet you have seen such loss. How can you stand there while the world falls apart around you? Who are you, Rose, really?"

There was something about him, she wasn't sure what, but there was something. So she told him.

"Who am I?" she repeated, moving back towards the man, "Well, my name is Rose Tyler, but what's in a name? I could tell you my name is the Lady Cassandra, or John Smith, for instance. A name is nothing. I can tell you that I'm the Bad Wolf. That I've been known as no more than Wolf from time to time, but that will mean nothing to you either…… So I'll tell you this instead. When everyone's running for cover, for fear of what's to come, I'm the one who walks. When the world is shouting out, I'm the one who speaks in the calm voice and makes people listen. When families are being ripped apart around me, I'm the one who pulls them back together. Because I know what it is to loose everything… When I'm told I can't do it, it's impossible, I'm the one who laughs in their faces and tells them I've done impossible. I've lived impossible… I'm the one who has met the one man who can save us all, and I've been the one who held his hand. I was the one he spoke to, the one he didn't hide from, for fear that I would see who he was and run from him. I was the one he knew would stay, no matter what. And I was the one who let him go…" she paused to take a deep, shuddering breath, tears whelming in her eyes at the memory, but she pushed them back and carried on speaking, "… You know when you're a kid, and the first time you're told the Earth revolves you just can't quite believe it, cuz everything looks like it's standing still," she moved a step closer to the man, "I've seen it… The turn of the Earth… And I have saved it so many times…" gently, Rose slipped her fingers around his and looked him straight in the eye, echoing words that had floated around her head for so long, "We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny planet, and if we let go…" she dropped his hand. So many times had she thought about the time she was told this very thing, but only now did she truly understand it, "That's who I am. I'm the only one stupid enough to let go," she took a step back from him, "Now forget me, Doctor, save the universe one more time."

And with that, Rose Tyler turned and walked away, hands thrust deep into pockets in her tight jeans. The man, the Doctor, stared after her, unable to speak. Unable to move.

Eventually, he realised he should run, catch up with her, shout out her name even, just to find out exactly what she had meant. But by the time he found himself able, he knew she would be long gone.

Slowly, he made his way back to his TARDIS, pulling out a small key as he did so. He unlocked the door, set the coordinates and the machine powered up. By the time they had entered the time vortex, the Doctor had, like she had told him to, forgotten all about the strange girl, who knew so much, yet revealed so little.

.o0o0o

On the end of a street, in the middle of London, a young, blond woman watches a Police Box fade from view. Then she turns and leaves. She knows he's merely a parallel of the man she's searching for. And she knows she can wait. She will find him someday.

At the same time, in an underground room beneath the Torchwood tower, a woman puts the finishing touches to a Dimension Cannon with the power to rip a hole in the universe. And in a parallel universe, a woman named Donna Noble enters a fortune teller's with the promise of a free reading due to her hair colour, not knowing the important part she will play in the events that are soon to happen. The universes carry on, unaware of the actions taking place behind closed doors. Actions that will put everyone, the whole of reality itself, in danger.

Only Rose Tyler knows. Only Rose Tyler can save them. But she can't do it alone.

And as Rose Tyler walks away from a fading blue box, she smiles to herself. _Not long now_, she knows, _and I'll be home_.


End file.
